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Abstract

Quantifying the water budget of urban areas presents special challenges, owing to the influence of subsurface infrastructure that can cause short-circuiting of natural flowpaths. In this paper we review some considerations for data collection and analysis in support of determining urban water budget components, with a particular emphasis on groundwater, using Baltimore as an example study area. We review selected data collection techniques and applications, including use of airborne thermal infrared imagery to determine locations of groundwater inputs to streams; use of seepage transects and tracer tests to quantify surface-subsurface exchange; estimating groundwater recharge rates; analysis of base flow behavior from stream gages; mining of public agency records of potable water and wastewater flows to estimate leakage rates and flowpaths in relation to streamflow and groundwater fluxes; and considerations for building a geodatabase that includes information relevant to urban hydrologic data.